Update from "former" program mom

[Anonymous]

Paulie, I thought you went bye-bye after you got your fanny smacked for maturely interfering with another site.

[TheWho]

On 2006-04-29 11:05:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Paulie, I thought you went bye-bye after you got your fanny smacked for maturely interfering with another site."

No I think that was Luke, he sleeps on the top bunk.

[Anonymous]

[Badpuppy]

I am happy that your daughter is doing well. I am not really sure what your position is about mental health professionals and lawyers. Are you saying that they shouldn't be used. That the only people who can give good advice are the parents who have had problems with their kids?

The thing people need to understand is that consensus among mental health professionals is that programs are ineffective and possibly harmful. That is the conclusion of the Surgeon General of the United States. If someone thinks this conclusion is biased I would certainly be willing to analyze objections. If anything you would think that the government researchers might be pressured by the million dollars the politicians received to protect the programs. If your daughter was helped she is the EXCEPTION NOT THE RULE.

[TheWho]

BadPuppy,  I would like to jump in and say I think it needs to be analyzed from a program by program bases.  Some schools seem to have better success rates than others.  For some schools the exception is if the child is not helped or doesn?t grow emotionally during their time there.  There have been studies which show that these schools can be beneficial to some at-risk teens.

[Anonymous]

Some schools seem to have better success rates than others. For some schools the exception is if the child is not helped or doesn?t grow emotionally during their time there.

Show the research.  Back up your claim.  How would you even know this?  

There have been studies which show that these schools can be beneficial to some at-risk teens.

No, there hasn't been.

[TheWho]

On 2006-04-29 13:55:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

Some schools seem to have better success rates than others. For some schools the exception is if the child is not helped or doesn?t grow emotionally during their time there.

Show the research.  Back up your claim.  How would you even know this?  

There have been studies which show that these schools can be beneficial to some at-risk teens.

No, there hasn't been."

Well, If you look at the feed back from some of the schools here, like straight, WWASP schools read the kids/parents experiences and then compare them to schools like Carlbrook, ASR etc. you can see a difference in the number of negative responses.  Read the effect some of these places have on the graduates, Clearly Straight seems to have more kids who did not do well after graduating vs some of the others.

There is a study performed on one of the TBS?s which concluded that kids do benefit.  I don?t have the link presently, but I can locate it if interested.

There was also an account written by a Pulitzer prize winning author who followed a few students thru the program, very detailed account which shows the pros and cons.



[ This Message was edited by: TheWho on 2006-04-29 14:15 ]

[mcr84kar86]

since no one here would explain "trolling", I asked my college age son - he explained, it was people who sit online to "argue with the other particiapnts, just for the sake of argueing" - if that is true, then those who accuse me of "trolling", looks like that would be some significant, transference?

the other explanation he gave was, "people from an organization who are paid to interact with others for the sole purpose of pulling them in as customers?" - so, what is the purpose of sitting for hours, already convinced of your own points of view to solicit and query participants, with the sole intent of invalidating the information gained?

boredom?

[mcr84kar86]

the question for a parent is:

do you listen to your child's school (DHHS)(in our case, they are trying to prevent being liable/responsible for the child going from a top performer to not being able to perform at all and them having to pay the bill for their responsibility of the child's "civil right to an education" at their expense?

do you listen to the psychiatrist, who keeps coming up with more complicated diagnosis/hospitilizations, "quiet rooms" that totally destroy the child's sense of any power?

do you listen to the insurance company, whose "case manager" want to dimish the problem to limit their liability and recommends 30 days here, 10 days there, 5 days here,  then another 30 days here with the "revolving door" syndrome repeated over and over?

do you listen to the child's private therapist who is convincing you that 2 - 3 times a week would be better for the child's "getting more quickly through this phase of challenging development", but instead of any progress, you just get deeper and deeper down that black hole?

do you listen to the recovery people who advocate "tough love" and just lock your child out of your home to get some normalcy back and keep your friends?

do you listen to the child that tells you to let them decide to go and just live the way they want to with "friends"?

my experience with the ed con was, this was the first experience with one entity interacting with all the various "agencies" who became involved and was able to organize all the "data" from each agency and make reccommondations for various TBS's around the country that were options to choose from, both by the parent and the child

no matter what the choice (and ours had a very positive outcome) it is excrutiatingly painful to be seperated from your child and the guilt of the time of seperation, never goes away (we still are making up for the lost time every day)

[Anonymous]

Well, If you look at the feed back from some of the schools here, like straight, WWASP schools read the kids/parents experiences and then compare them to schools like Carlbrook, ASR etc. you can see a difference in the number of negative responses.

I'm sorry, but I read your posts and you continually tell others not to believe posters on this site (the negative ones), yet you now want to use anonymous "positive" posts to prove a point?  That just won't do.

As far a a pulitzer winner goes, that means nothing unless he's an experienced degreed professional in psychiatry or social work.  Otherwise his observations or stories are merely his opinion, which would be basically worthless, just like the anonymous posts on this forum.

You said there have been "studies" but when I looked through your posts you only ever named one single study (done by a student) that was not a clinical trial of any sort.  I read the study as well.  The reults do not indicate that TBS's help anyone, but the results clearly show that there are many categories that show presenting problems continuing above the clinical threshhold after treatment.  

This study is also a participant study with questionaires, not a clinical trial with a control group and an experimental group which is, of course, the sole and only way to assess effectivness.  So this tudy is also "out" as evidence of helping.

This brings us back to only the word of the programs and the survivors which, according to what you have been presenting on this forum, must both be discounted as "unprovable."

Try to find some real research and get back to me if you find any.  All I've been able to find is longitudinal clinical trials that show firm evidence of harm or complete ineffectiveness.

[Anonymous]

Yawn.
Are you done yet?

[TheWho]

I'm sorry, but I read your posts and you continually tell others not to believe posters on this site (the negative ones).

This is troubling to me, I don?t believe this to be true can you provide a few links.  I listen intently to both sides, maybe my remarks were taken out of context.

As far a a pulitzer winner goes, that means nothing unless he's an experienced degreed professional in psychiatry or social work. Otherwise his observations or stories are merely his opinion, which would be basically worthless, just like the anonymous posts on this forum.

Why do people continue to try to discredit authors like Maia Szalavitz and Dave Marcus because they are not degreed in each area they write in?  This shows a total lack of understanding of what these people do.

You said there have been "studies" but when I looked through your posts you only ever named one single study (done by a student) that was not a clinical trial of any sort. I read the study as well. The reults do not indicate that TBS's help anyone, but the results clearly show that there are many categories that show presenting problems continuing above the clinical threshhold after treatment.

The study does indicate there are many areas to be improved upon and that further studies are needed.  I think we can all agree that more studies are needed to reflect the current status of the schools which are improving on a daily basis.
Just a quote from the study:

V. Shapiros ?My findings contradict the idea that making fundamental changes during late adolescence is nearly impossible (Loeber, 1991) and also dispel the myth that long-term treatment is detrimental to normal development. The most important finding of this study is that residential treatment for troubled adolescents has the potential to be extremely effective. ?
http://groups.colgate.edu/cjs/student_p ... hapiro.pdf

This study is also a participant study with questionaires, not a clinical trial with a control group and an experimental group which is, of course, the sole and only way to assess effectivness. So this tudy is also "out" as evidence of helping.

Until other studies are done this is all we have.  I think we should let the readers decide.

This brings us back to only the word of the programs and the survivors which, according to what you have been presenting on this forum, must both be discounted as "unprovable."

I agree besides the accounts of  the Dave Marcus and Maia Szalavitzs of the world and collegiate studies we have to rely on the accounts of those who lived it and listen to their stories.

Try to find some real research and get back to me if you find any. All I've been able to find is longitudinal clinical trials that show firm evidence of harm or complete ineffectiveness.

I hear you and agree,  We need more studies, as soon as they are done and published we will get them up on this board for all to read.  Nothing is more important than independent studies in building a foundation for forming opinion and making decisions, but it seems there hasn?t been funding or an interest.  Maybe this forum can help to raise the importance.





[ This Message was edited by: TheWho on 2006-04-29 15:57 ]

[TheWho]

Just an after thought
The schools (and the models they use) are becoming more and more diverse.  We can not continue to lump them all together and rate them as all good or all bad.  Many of these schools are changing and evolving very quickly and others are not.  Like the anon poster mention in a previous post we are relying on the accounts of parents and students.  We need to be more diligent in uncovering the effects / success of each school independently so that parents can more easily choose what is right for their child and avoid the schools that could be disastrous for them.  This forum could provide a better service to the parents who come here by doing this.

[Troll Control]

The most important finding of this study is that residential treatment for troubled adolescents has the potential to be extremely effective.

Potential?  Maybe.  Currently effective?  According to Ms. Shapiros own findings, no.  Her findings show very clearly that the participants' problems did not abate due to treatment and continued to be above the clinical threshold.  This means that the presenting problems for which the patients were entered into treatment still exist at levels that require treatment, thusly proving that the treatment they received was ineffective in treating the presenting issues.

It's your reference, but you have not interpreted the results correctly.  You merely took the statement that TBS's may "potentially help" and turned it into "do help."  The author never said that, nor do the statistical derivations support that conclusion.  It is your conlusion, not hers.

Aside from this fact, the study model is very shaky, the population sample is entirely too small to be representative and is hand-picked by the facility and there is evident bias due to the fact that the patients and parents would be reluctant to report negative events for very obvious reasons.

As far as the authors are concerned, Marcus' findings are anecdotal and do not come from a representative sample and do not represent any clinical data while Szalavitz's come from anecdotal evidence from a legitimately sized temporally longitudinal sample and are buttressed by copious clinical research, which is abundantly cited in her work.  So, if we're just comparing their work, Szalavitz' is entirely more legitmate.

[Anonymous]

The dual program apologists have a free cup of coffee waiting for them on another aisle (thread).

This one needs a major cleanup from the pro-program garbage.